4+1 on a Wednesday: Autodesk, Maya HTT, BAE Systems and PTC acquire -- plus a thank you for a safe landing

I spent the last month traveling, going to Graphisoft’s Archicad 27 launch in Budapest, Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure in Singapore, and AVEVA World in San Francisco —and exploring in Japan— and will tell you about each of those as I can; I’m still digging out from under a mountain of emails. But the PLMish world kept going while I was away, so we’ll start with a quick news roundup and a grateful thank you.

First, the acquisitions:

Autodesk?announced?that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire?FlexSim, maker of factory and logistics center discrete event simulation tools. According to Stephen Hooper’s blog post about the deal, “FlexSim’s factory simulation technology complements Autodesk’s existing factory design solutions. It provides in-depth model analysis, layout scenarios, and process simulation to users of [many of Autodesk’s design solutions, both AEC and manufacturing]. FlexSim will initially be offered in conjunction with Autodesk’s Design and Make Platform, closely aligned with Autodesk Fusion …” Financial details were not announced. I hope to learn more at Autodesk University in a few weeks.

Maya HTT?announced?that it had acquired?SmartMeca, a Siemens partner in France. Maya HTT is already one of Siemens’ leading resellers, certainly for CAE solutions, and with this deal, it expands its footprint in Europe.

BAE Systems?announced?that it has acquired?Eurostep. Who? Why? You know BAE Systems as a sizeable European defense contractor -- but they, like many other companies, are getting into digital businesses. Dave Armstrong, Group Managing Director of BAE Systems Digital Intelligence, said, “[We] formed Digital Intelligence in early 2022 in response to growing customer demand for data, digital and intelligence capability.” The press release goes on to say that the acquisition of Eurostep “brings together complementary capabilities in digital asset management, enabling defence and heavily regulated customers to optimise the operation, costs and through-life support of complex assets ... This acquisition represents a key step in delivering our ... investment strategy in innovative, data-led technologies including continued development in BAE Systems digital asset management suite, PropheSEA.” Terms were not released.

PTC?announced the?acquisition?of?pure-systems,?maker of the product and software variant management solution pure::variants. PTC said in the announcement that “pure::variants is already integrated with and directly complements PTC’s Codebeamer application lifecycle management solution and complements PTC’s Windchill product lifecycle management solutions. The addition of pure-systems [will] support PTC’s leading position in the fast-growing ALM market, drive additional ALM growth, and enhance relationships with customers in regulated industries – including automotive, aerospace, and medical device manufacturers – which are increasingly prioritizing software in their product designs.” More on this when I write about PTC’s earnings, out later today.

Speaking of earnings, I’ll cover the earnings releases that have already happened in the next few days. Quickly, though, things in PLMland are going well, with revenue generally coming in as expected.?Dassault Systèmes?said that large deals are back;?Cadence?saw strong activity in AI and automotive chip design;?Hexagon?reported good momentum in general manufacturing, power, and energy. Lots more to come on all of that.

Now to the?thank you:?my last flight of this 14,000-miles-in-the-air odyssey was from San Francisco to Boston. We were set to land early but then flew from North to South across Massachusetts to either burn fuel or hold before landing at Boston Logan Airport. (San Francisco to Boston is West to East, so the North/South thing differed from the standard approach.) When we were finally cleared to land, we came down to what a flight attendant thought was 1,000 feet before the pilot aborted the landing and pulled us back up. A steep but not frightening ascent later, the pilot came over the public address system to say that a slow aircraft was on our planned runway and that we would have to try again to land in 3 minutes. The crew handled it brilliantly, and we landed without incident, just a few minutes late. So, @United, please thank the crew of flight 549 on October 26, 2023, for our safe landing.

More soon.